Recruitment Tools

The Graduate School is here to assist graduate programs with tools for recruiting great students. Faculty and students are the best recruiters and have discipline-specific information potential students want to know. Included below are materials for you to print out for use when attending conferences.

Holistic Recruiting and Admissions

CGS Holistic review

The Graduate School shares the Holistic Review in Graduate Admissions (PDF) from the Council of Graduate Schools. Recruitment includes the admission review process, and we want to encourage consideration of holistic review. It refers to a less quantitative, data-driven approach to the admission review process, focused not as strongly on test scores and GPA, but the whole person with their personal attributes and strengths. It also encourages considering the whole cohort and what each student offers the group.

Timothy R. Donoghue Graduate Scholarship Program

This scholarship program was initiated by Timothy Donoghue, former Graduate School dean, as a way to recruit top candidates throughout the United States to K-State graduate programs by offering graduate assistantship packages that are highly competitive. Donoghue Scholarships enhance the maximum package a graduate program can offer to top candidates, making the total package a partnership between the graduate program and the Graduate School. The scholarship is renewable for a second academic year. The Graduate School distributes an annual call for nominations to graduate programs.

Recruitment Funding

Top doctoral students are a prized resource in higher education, and the recruitment of these students occurs most productively when pursued collectively. It is our experience that "recruitment weekends" are one of the most effective graduate recruitment strategies.

The Graduate School offers a funding opportunity to assist programs with bringing admitted doctoral students to campus for a spring visit. The Graduate School will fund a limited number of graduate programs up to $5,000. To receive the maximum award, a program must have 10 or more admitted doctoral students participating in the event. Programs that plan to bring fewer than 10 students to campus would request funding of up to $500 per student. Programs will be expected to make the travel arrangements and provide any additional funding necessary to support activities. Funding will be provided for doctoral applicants, unless the terminal degree in the discipline is Masters. The Graduate School distributes an annual call for applications to graduate programs.

Recruitment Fairs

Graduate School administrators and staff participate in recruitment fairs, conferences, and meetings throughout the year to meet and recruit prospective K-State graduate students. Contact our office if you would like to provide promotional materials for your program that we can share with prospective students.

Diversity Recruitment

We have some ideas and best practices for recruiting diverse graduate students, and equally important, diverse faculty. Thanks to our colleagues at the University of Minnesota who have shared these tools with us. Please have a look at their handbooks, created just for faculty.

building on best practices for diversity best practices for equity and diversity with diverse faculty

University of Minnesota's Graduate Diversity Recruitment (PDF) and Faculty Recruitment Handbook (PDF)